


The Night Before

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Snow, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Peter is the king of denial.





	The Night Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seraphina_snape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphina_snape/gifts).



> Written as a Christmas present for the lovely seraphina_snape.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” Abigail asked.

I grunted for answer and pulled the duvet further over my head.

“Molly says you set fire to your bed.”

I grunted again, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Nightingale's taken Toby on a walk.”

I refused to grunt again and instead waited to be left on my own. This was all embarrassing enough I didn't need Abigail looking after me, and I certainly didn't need Nightingale being all sympathetic and considerate. That's what had lead to this whole mess in the first place.

“Suit yourself,” Abigail said and made sure to close the door with a thump as she left.

I counted to twenty and then threw the covers off myself. If I'd pulled this stunt at home my Mum would have dragged me out by my ear by now and given all my toys away. I didn't know whose room this had been but since mine was a little smoky at the moment it had proved a fairly ineffective bolt hole. It was one of the ones that Molly reserved for guests, on the rare occasions that we had any, and was as freshly polished and hoovered as when it was first built.

The only reason I didn't jump out of my skin when I opened the door and saw Molly standing there with a knife in her hand was because I'd been expecting it.

“Molly – I.”

Molly cocked her head to one side and I realised that the phone must have rung. “For me?” I asked.

Molly drifted away for answer.

“Right,” I muttered to myself, “a case then. Hopefully.”

I padded downstairs and got to the phone set on its side just as Nightingale came back into the building. There was a fine dust of snow about his hat and shoulders and he couldn't have looked more like a dashing movie idol if he'd tried. My traitorous body definitely agreed.

When I picked up the phone all I heard was the dial tone. Either they'd hung up, or my body wasn't the only traitor doing the rounds.

“Peter, it's good to see you up,” Nightingale said, and then looked a little surprised at himself. Thankfully Toby yapped for attention and Nightingale knelt down to unclasp his lead.

Toby gratefully licked at Nightingale's hand and then padded over to me, but since I clearly didn't have any sausages on me he turned away and followed Molly downstairs.

I was very aware that I hadn't been alone with Nightingale since the incident, no capitals, thank you for noticing, and that this had the potential to be very awkward. Nightingale clearly felt it too because he coughed and kept his distance as he took off his gloves, hat, scarf and coat.

“It's snowing then?” I said, going for the obvious award.

“Yes, just started,” Nightingale said, smiling politely at me. God, what a mess. “Have you had something to eat?”

I shook my head. “I'm fine.”

“Abigail was going to leave me some translations to look over,” Nightingale said after a moment. “I'll get started.”

He disappeared into the library and I headed downstairs. I needed to blow things up.

* * * * *

One of the first things you learn when on patrol is how to spot the unusual and how to tell when you're being watched. I couldn't tell you exactly when I realised Nightingale was standing in the doorway, watching me demolish paper figures until my shoulders grew tired, just that one moment he was there and the next he was making all the paper figures disappear into a cloud of smoke.

“Very Houdini,” I said and turned just in time to see him smiling at me.

“You were in danger of overdoing it,” he said, more sombrely.

“I would have stopped,” I replied, because of course I would have. I knew my limits.

“I know,” Nightingale replied. “I trust your judgement.”

That felt dangerously like testing the perimeter of an issue neither of us really wanted to talk about so I changed the subject.

“No chance there's a case is there?”

“I'm afraid the magical community appears to have taken a break for the holiday. But I did think you might want to see what's happening outside.”

Curious I followed Nightingale and found myself standing in the kitchen doorway watching as Molly, Abigail and Toby threw snowballs at each other. Or in Toby's case jumped up and tried to catch them in his mouth.

It clearly hadn't stopped snowing since Nightingale's return – we were definitely in line for a white Christmas and all the bookies had been wrong about the predicted washout.

“Is this natural?” I asked, immediately suspicious.

“I've done some checking,” Nightingale said. “As best I can tell, yes, it is.” He paused and stepped a little closer to me, radiating heat all along my side. “I haven't seen snow like this in a very long time.”

“Not since the Thames last froze over?”

“1963 was certainly an interesting winter, from a Rivers stand point,” Nightingale said, pressing his shoulder into mine. “Peter, don't you think we need to talk?”

“Do we have to?” I asked.

Before he could answer a snowball hit him right in the chest. We both looked over to see a grinning Abigail quickly looking not very confident at all.

“I believe that was a declaration of war,” Nightingale replied, grinning like a school boy and letting forth a short burst of coordinated magic that sent three snowballs at Abigail's back.

“That's cheating!” she shouted, grinning all the same and hiding behind Molly's back.

Smiling Nightingale headed out into the snow and picked up a snowball the regular way, throwing it for Toby to try and catch.

“Come on Peter!” Abigail called, throwing a snowball at my face that I only just managed to duck.

“Right,” I said, “you're on!”

* * ** *

Back inside, warming up in the library with hot chocolates and rosy cheeks (at least in Nightingale's case), suddenly everything seemed like it was going to be okay.

I've really got to stop thinking these things.

“Now would seem a good time to talk, wouldn't it?” Nightingale asked me, delicate fingers curled around his mug.

“Would it?” I asked.

“ _Peter_.”

I sighed and tried to fold myself into the chair. Well, it was now or never I guessed.

“I'm sorry that I kissed you.”

“Peter, I'm not concerned about the kiss, I'm concerned about the fire.”

One of these days I'm going to have to find some of Nightingale's contemporaries and ask them if he'd always had the uncanny knack of honing in on the one thing you actually didn't want him to.

“You could have been seriously hurt,” Nightingale continued, apparently viewing my silence as some sort of agreement to listen instead of the very quiet freak out it actually was. “I realise the last few weeks have been traumatic, coupled up with the ending of your relationship with Beverley Brook, but to lose control of yourself like that. I presume...Molly indicated that you said some things. That you were shouting before your bed caught on fire. About being buried alive.”

I shivered without thought and Nightingale moved forward, taking the blanket that was draped across the back of the chair and wrapping it around my shoulders. I found myself angled to look at him, his breath a warm whisper against my cheeks.

“You really weren't bothered about the kiss?” I asked.

“Peter...we need to talk about...”

I kissed him then, because somehow I'd taken that for permission. Whereas before I'd woken dazed and slightly on fire until Nightingale had put out the flames with a single whispered spell and I'd kissed him, still not really awake or aware but feeling that flush of abandon and who the hell cares I may as well go for it and claim insanity later, now I was moving with purpose and so, I couldn't help but notice in amongst all the jumbled up feelings in my brain, was he.

He moved apart first of course, but I reeled him back in and he came easily, leaning against me slightly, the heavy presence of his body a stark reminder that he was there and real and a man and I had no idea what do next and I wasn't entirely sure he did either.

“We're not doing anything until we talk, Peter,” Nightingale said, the serious tone somewhat hampered by the licking of his lips.

“Do we have to?” I asked, realising even as I angled my body that I was flirting with him and yet it didn't seem all that different to how we normally were with each other.

Huh.

As that thought settled Abigail poked her head through the library door and Nightingale abruptly stood up; he couldn't have looked more guilty if he'd tried.

Abigail, fifteen going on forty-five, considered us through narrowed eyes and then filed away whatever she'd seen to use against me later.

“Molly says dinner's ready. If you're coming?”

“Thank you, Abigail. I'll just go and freshen up. I won't be a moment.”

He headed out without even turning his head towards me, but I could see by the flush of red to his neck that his famous self-control had taken a pummelling.

“Better now, then?” Abigail asked.

“Yes, thanks,” I replied with a smile that I wasn't able to hide fast enough.

“And you're not going to tell me what happened?”

“No, I don't think I will.”

Abigail's pout turned almost dangerous. “Fine, don't then. I have my own secrets, you know,” she said as she turned around and stomped out of the room.

Yes, I thought. That I could well believe.

Bet they weren't as good as mine though.


End file.
